I used to like bonfire night. The smell of fireworks, a badly barbecued hot dog, maybe sneaking a drink from my old man’s pint. All positive character-forming memories.

However I am more than a little jealous that today’s children have it a great deal better than we did. Bonfire night, has now become Bonfire Month. It does not have a specific start date, but generally begins somewhere in the middle of October and runs until the second week of November. During this period there is at least one fireworks display each every evening, within 200 yards of my flat.

I am also ‘fortunate’ enough to live within a few hundred yards of Legoland, who kindly put on a number of displays during Bonfire Month. And then there is the local racecourse, who also had a display on Saturday. That’s Saturday 28th October. As in a full week before the 5th November.

Some would say we are lucky that the local displays appear to have borrowed various munitions from the local Army barracks. Not me. I live in a double glazed property, and this blocks out the noise of trick-or-treaters, Jehovahs Witnesses, and even Boeing 747’s coming it to land at nearby Heathrow, all with complete ease. But during Bonfire Month I am inundated by explosions similar to those on the Iraqi front-line. We are not talking back-garden fireworks here. No, we’re talking industrial strength explosives worth thousands of pounds. Every night. Unless of course terrorists are using Bonfire Month as a cover to blow up really insignificant stuff that no-one has noticed is missing yet. Stuff like Jade Goody’s career, and Sayed Ahmed’s sense of shame.

Anyway, there is only so many times you can go “Ooooo!” and “Ahhhh!” at bright lights in the sky*.

One night a year I can live with. An entire month? That’s just taking the piss. If Guy Fawkes had been this vague with his planning, he may well have caught them unawares, succeeded in his plot, and we’d have a nice modern Houses of Parliament in Reading or somewhere.

Although I obviously now recognise that we should be celebrating our first proper home grown terrorist, I think a month is a little more than needed, so can we just have a few Catherine wheels on Saturday evening and be done with it?

* It is three times. Any more than that and you are borderline autistic.

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